Story code: ST-001923
Part 4: The Mandate
The crushing pressure of the gun barrel against Elias’s skull lessened for just a fraction of a second. The state contractor shifted his weight slightly off Elias’s spine, reaching with his free hand to zip the heavy black canvas transport bag closed. In that minuscule window of relaxed leverage, Elias’s eyes darted frantically across the pharmacist’s workstation.
There, sitting on a metal sorting tray behind the thick acrylic security partition, was a single amber bottle. The pharmacist, blinded by terror as he scrambled to empty the safe, had missed one. The white label faced outward, bearing the printed name of the exact chemical compound that was the only thing standing between Maya and a catastrophic internal rupture.
Elias did not think about the firearm. He did not think about the automated state registry or the impending felony charges. He thought only of Maya’s shallow, rattling breaths in the passenger seat of their idling sedan.
With a primal, guttural roar, Elias bucked his hips upward, throwing his entire body weight against the enforcer’s torso. The sudden, explosive movement caught the contractor off guard. The heavy man stumbled backward, his combat boots squeaking loudly against the linoleum. The barrel of the sidearm slipped entirely from Elias’s neck.
Elias scrambled off the laminate counter, his damaged knee screaming in hot agony as it took his weight. He didn’t run toward the exit. Instead, he lunged for the heavy metal fire extinguisher resting where it had fallen on the floor. He hoisted the red cylinder over his shoulder, his muscles tearing with the desperate strain, and swung it like a sledgehammer directly into the pharmacy’s acrylic security partition.
The deafening crash echoed through the cavernous retail store. Spiderwebs of white fractures spidered across the thick plastic before the center completely blew out. Jagged shards of acrylic rained down on the laminate counters and the sterile floor.
Elias thrust his arm straight through the jagged hole. A sharp edge sliced deep through his jacket sleeve and into his forearm, but he didn’t feel the burn. His bloodied fingers scrambled blindly across the metal sorting tray until they brushed against smooth plastic. He closed his fist around the amber bottle. He had it.
He spun around to make a break for the front doors, but the enforcer was already there.
A heavy fist, encased in hard-knuckle tactical gloves, collided directly with Elias’s jaw. The world flashed a blinding, sickening white. Elias felt his feet leave the floor. He crashed backward into an endcap display of vitamins, sending hundreds of plastic bottles cascading over him in a deafening clatter. Before he could even attempt to get his bearings, the contractor was on top of him.
A heavy combat boot drove directly into Elias’s chest, pinning him to the floor with bone-crushing force. Elias gasped, his ribs groaning under the immense pressure, his lungs suddenly entirely devoid of oxygen. The enforcer dropped to one knee, grabbing Elias’s right arm-the one desperately gripping the bottle-and twisted it violently backward. Elias screamed as his shoulder popped out of its socket with a sickening, wet crunch.
“Target subdued. Compliance enforced,” the contractor barked into a radio microphone clipped to his vest, his voice utterly devoid of adrenaline. He shoved Elias’s face hard into the cold linoleum, pulling a thick plastic zip-tie from his tactical belt.
Through the swelling slits of his bruised eyes, Elias saw a pair of worn white sneakers.
A woman, wearing a faded gray sweatshirt and clutching a wire shopping basket to her chest, was standing completely frozen at the end of the aisle. She had clearly wandered over from the grocery section, drawn by the sound of shattering glass. Her eyes were wide with unadulterated terror as she stared at the blood pooling beneath Elias’s cheek.
With the absolute last ounce of strength in his broken body, Elias fought against the enforcer’s crushing grip. He couldn’t break free, but he managed to flick his wrist just a fraction of an inch. The small amber bottle slipped from his bloodied fingers and skittered across the smooth linoleum. It spun to a stop less than three feet from the woman’s white sneakers.
Elias spat a mouthful of copper-tasting blood onto the floor, straining his neck against the heavy hand pressing him down to look directly into the bystander’s horrified eyes.
“Please,” Elias wheezed, his voice a broken, desperate rasp. “Outside. Silver sedan. My wife. She’s dying. Please, just take it to her. Just open the door and give it to her.”
The woman stared at the bottle of pills as if it were a live explosive. She looked up at the heavily armed enforcer, who was now expertly binding Elias’s wrists together behind his back with the rigid plastic tie.
“Please!” Elias begged, tears of absolute despair cutting tracks through the blood and white ceiling dust on his face. “Her name is Maya! It’s not a crime! She’s bleeding inside! Save her!”
The woman’s breath caught in her throat. She took a slow, trembling step backward. Then another. She shook her head, her knuckles turning stark white around the plastic handle of her shopping basket. She didn’t look at Elias again. She turned and ran blindly down the aisle, her hurried, panicked footsteps fading into the sterile, buzzing hum of the fluorescent lights.
Elias let his head fall heavily against the linoleum. The fight drained entirely out of his muscles, replaced by a cold, suffocating void. He watched through blurred, darkening vision as the contractor calmly reached out, picked up the amber bottle, and dropped it into a black utility pouch.
The automated state protocol had won. Elias lay bound and bleeding on the floor of a brightly lit pharmacy, surrounded by thousands of useless remedies, while less than a hundred yards away, the only person he loved was quietly running out of time in the dark.